BERNICE MORGAN

Bernice was born and resides in St. John's, Newfoundland. She worked in Public Relations, first with Memorial University of Newfoundland, where she was Editor of the Gazette, and later with the Newfoundland Teacher's Association, where she was Communications Officer and Editor of the Bulletin until 1986 when she resigned to begin writing full time. She has been a member of the editorial board of Killick Press, the literary imprint of Creative Publishers. She has served on the executive of The Writer's Alliance and The Newfoundland Writer's Guild as well as many community-based positions including the St. John's Library Board and the City of St. John's Art Jury.

 

Novels:

Cloud of Bone
(Knopf Canada, 2007)

Random Passage
(Breakwater Press, 1992; German, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1998; French, XYZ, 2000; US, Shambhala, 2002 as Cape Random)

Waiting For Time
(Breakwater Press, 1994; German, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 1998; French, XYZ, )

Short Story Collection:

The Topography of Love
(Breakwater Press, 2000)

Bernice's short stories have appeared in such anthologies as Digging Into the Hill, and A Way With Words. She has also been published in many of Canada's literary magazines including Grain, Fiddlehead and TickleAce.

Writing by Bernice is included in four text-books, Themes for All Times, edited by Clark, Bonisteel, King and Gibson, Opening and Stages, both works edited by Norman, Warr and Goulding. Harcourt Brace has included her work in a textbook called Cultures, and Random Passage is on the curriculum in many Newfoundland High Schools.

Stage Play:

The Big Game, was a prize winner in the 1997 Playwriting Competiton, and performed by The Beothuck Street Players in St.John's and Labrador City in 1998.

Awards:

• Canadian Authors Association
  Literary Prize for Fiction 1994
  
  
• Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award for 1994
  
  
• "Artist of the Year"
  Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council 1996
  
  
• Honourary Degree awarded by Memorial
  University of Newfoundland 1998

Television and film:

CBC Mini-series based on Random Passage and Waiting for Time aired in 2001


Praise:

For Cloud of Bone

“As an author, Bernice Morgan is already well known - with both Random Passage and Waiting for Time to her credit - and she's also tremendously skilled. The wonder is how artfully she brings this land alive, and how strongly the novel's main characters come across. This is a book where bright images abound, and are familiar… Throughout, Morgan's writing has a careful, almost minimalist touch that is still full of bright images… and Morgan's vision rings absolutely true. This is a novel of interconnected circumstance, and no one in it is safe either from their own actions or from the actions of others.”
     - The Globe and Mail

“Morgan, a bestselling Newfoundland-born author (Random Passage and Waiting for Time), weaves together a masterful tale that springs from three separate stories….”
     - Ottawa Citizen

“[Morgan] writes about hardship with empathy and accuracy. Her descriptions of violence are unflinching…. This is powerful, Cain-and-Abel stuff, a study of "humankind's long commitment to violence." And, in its concluding part, set in 1998, with the shadow of genocide in Rwanda and Yugoslavia in the background, Cloud of Bone does what historical fiction does best - it connects our past to our present…. Still, Morgan's heart is not only in the right place, it is courageous and expansive. Morgan said once that we act as though our lives are going to last forever, adding that "the things we leave behind make me feel deeply sad and proud of how brave, how eternally hopeful we humans are." In Cloud of Bone, she demonstrates that her commitment to what gets left behind is strong and enduring.”
     - The Gazette (Montreal)